Breakdown of Mitä pidempi luento on, sitä vaativampi se on.
olla
to be
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
mikä
what
pitkä
long, tall
Questions & Answers about Mitä pidempi luento on, sitä vaativampi se on.
How do mitä and sitä create the "the... the..." meaning here?
In Finnish, the "the more... the more..." construction is built using mitä (the partitive form of mikä) and sitä (the partitive form of se). You place mitä at the start of the first clause and sitä at the start of the second clause to establish the relationship between the two things changing.
Why does the comparative come immediately after mitä and sitä?
In this correlative structure, the comparative word is locked into the position right after mitä or sitä. English mirrors this closely: we say "The longer the lecture is," and Finnish matches it exactly with Mitä pidempi luento on. It would be grammatically incorrect to put the comparative at the end, like Mitä luento on pidempi.
The dictionary word for "long" is pitkä. Why does it become pidempi here?
Adding the comparative ending -mpi triggers consonant gradation, so the strong tk in pitkä weakens to d. Additionally, there is a special rule for two-syllable adjectives ending in -a or -ä: their final vowel changes to -e before the comparative ending. This is why it becomes pidempi and not "pitkämpi".
What is the base word for (more demanding)?